Mark Consuelos joked about making money by simply conversing with his wife, Kelly Ripa, amid the news that he is replacing Ryan Seacrest on “Live.”
“@kellyripa my ride or die. This is going to be amazing!” the actor, 51, wrote via Instagram on Thursday. “I can’t believe after all these years of listening to you talk for free, I found a way to get paid for it. Is this a great country or what? ❤️.”
Ripa, 52, responded with her own post that roasted her hubby right back.
“@instasuelos welcome home, or to the contractual obligation phase of our relationship,” she joked.
Consuelos also sent warm wishes to Seacrest, 48, and admitted that he has “big shoes to fill.”
“Congrats on your next chapter @ryanseacrest. I love you like a brother,” the “Riverdale” alum said, joking, “I know I have some big shoes to fill … well actually they’re only a size 9, but you know what I mean.”
As Page Six previously reported, Seacrest revealed that he would be leaving “Live With Kelly and Ryan” after co-hosting the show for six years.
“This is something that [Kelly] and I have been talking about for a long time, and it was a tough, tough decision. Last year we spoke, and I made the decision to make this my last season as co-host,” he told viewers on Thursday.
Seacrest added that he will be moving to California to focus on his hosting gig on “American Idol.”
“What I plan to do is once ‘American Idol’ starts from Los Angeles later this spring, I’ll head out to the West Coast and host that show,” Seacrest said while promising that he will return “to guest host and fill in.”
Ripa, calling him “one of my best friends,” explained that Seacrest was only supposed to be on the show with her for three years but that he ended up staying for six.
“Congratulations @ryanseacrest on surviving six winters in NYC! I’m proud of you and am forever in your corner,” Ripa added on social media.
She also shared how excited she is for her husband to be joining her on the show.
“The only person I can think of that is capable of holding [Ryan’s] torch the way [he has] held it would be my husband, Mark Consuelos, in what Ryan and I are calling the nation’s weirdest social experiment,” she joked.
The “All My Children” actress previously co-hosted the show with Regis Philbin from 2001 to 2011 followed by Michael Strahan from 2012 to 2016. She and Strahan notoriously “couldn’t stand each other”.
Seacrest then joined in 2017, with Ripa saying at the time that “his star shines as brightly off camera as it does on.”
Viewers have already gotten a taste of Consuelos’ co-hosting abilities as he has filled in for Seacrest on multiple occasions over the years.
And sources exclusively told Page Six on Thursday that ABC had been trying to woo Consuelos to take over for Seacrest since last year.
Ripa and Consuelos, who often lust over each other publicly on social media, have been married since 1996 and share three children: Michael, 25, Lola, 21, and Joaquin, 19.
